I won't be fancy / But I will be free.
Go Down Easy, John Martyn
October 2015
"Hi." Jess' slumberous voice cracks through the phone after a few ringing tones.
"Hi," Rory says. "Did I wake you?"
"Yeah- But it doesn't matter, I'm supposed to get up now anyway. But you. It must be, what, three am there?"
"Yeah, I couldn't sleep."
"Okay."
She's comforted by that simple word, by his tone, by the fact that she knows what he's do if they were together now. He'd just hold her. Granted, that is hard to replicate over the phone, over a continent, but there's still that small word of his, the way he says it that, that calms her.
"I miss you." She says mid-yawn.
"Dito."
Silence falls between them and she wishes she could fall asleep like this.
"Hey, do you wanna go to New York for your birthday?
The question shakes something loose in her. She stares into the unnaturally bright night outside the hotel room's window.
"I live in New York," she mumbles.
"You occasionally sleep in New York," he retorts and she can hear the smile in his voice. She smiles back but remains silent. "Or maybe you wanna go to Stars Hollow. Or maybe you have other plans. I just figured I'd ask since it's a week away."
"It is."
"So?" There's a pause. "We don't have to spend it together-" He starts.
"Cork it." She cuts him off, then sighs. "I just don't feel very birthday-e. So, no Stars Hollow." Her thoughts slowly start to make sense to her. "But I like where your head's at. Road trip. Can I pick the town?"
"You get to decide everything."
"Philadelphia."
He laughs.
"You wanna go to Philadelphia for your birthday?"
"I want a road trip to Philadelphia for my birthday. To your place. It's completely unacceptable that I haven't seen it yet."
"No party? No guests?"
"No trouble. Just you and me."
"Hey!" He chides. "It's your wishes that are supposed to come true, not mine!"
"Couldn't I just forfeit it? Oh! We could switch!" She smiles broadly at this point. "Yeah! I could take your birthday instead and we could spend it in Stars Hollow with massive amounts of Indian food and a movie marathon at the book store and-"
"Oh, man." He raises his voice. "So road trip to Philadelphia, huh?"
"Yes please, and I won't apologize for being low maintenance."
He laughs.
"You are not low maintenance."
"No, I guess not," she admits. "You do the driving."
He sighs.
"Deal."
She's about to let him go when he speaks again.
"Wait, where's point A? Where do we drive from?"
She actually gives it thought. Considers her Brooklyn-pad, and that he's too accurate in his description of how she lives there. Realizes that she avoids going there. It's not the pad. Okay, maybe it's a little bit the pad. But her aversion has grown towards it steadily since she got the contract and she thinks it's the fact that she pours money into keeping it, spending almost no time there, and finding she prefers hotels over it any day of the week... And knowing that by now, hotels might actually have been a financially smarter investment.
"Stars Hollow." She says.
"You make no sense."
"But it is my birthday."
"It is your birthday." He concedes.
"Bye." She purrs.
"Goodnight," he says pointedly and hangs up.
She puts her phone away and rolls onto her back, smiling as the sound of his voice resonates in her head, closes her eyes and falls asleep.
She dreams of being in the passenger seat of a car. There's a dark road ahead and there's music. Her heartbeat is strong, and the air feels electric. It connects her to everything, the person in the driver's seat, every atom in her body, the past and future. She knows it's coming but isn't scared. The swerve just feels like inhaling and when it hurts she knows it's supposed to, the trick is to keep breathing.
A week later she pulls into Stars Hollow right before midnight. She lets herself into the diner where she's meeting Jess. She hasn't been able to get comfortable with staying at her mother's with him. She tells herself she's working on it, just not tonight, she's going for a birthday of smooth sailing if she has a say. She's barely done locking the door behind her when he comes down the stairs and into the dark diner. It's been about ten days since she's seen him and she's been on needles the entire drive here. They both stop in their tracks for a beat at the sight of each other. She exhales audibly, with a hint of squeal, and he responds with a quick, relieved smile, before closing the gap between them, in a few decisive steps.
The clock radio shows 00.48 when he leans over toward it. She groans with malcontent at the movement.
"What are you doing?" She whines.
"I'm setting the alarm."
She shakes her head.
"You don't have to."
"Why not? If we don't get up in time the drive's gonna take all day."
"You'll see. Trust me. It's my birthday." At that she pulls him back down, and drags his arm across her body, settles in, and falls asleep.
Her phone rings at 4.03 am, and she lets it ring a few extra times for Jess to wake up before picking up, and on a whim, putting it on speaker.
"Hi, mom."
"Good morning, child."
Her mother plunges into the story of her birth, and Rory relishes in the familiarity, happier than she has been in a while that her mother insists on doing this even when they're not at one hundred percent. She turns to Jess who's on his side looking at her, wide-eyed.
"What the fuck?" He mouths at her and she chuckles quietly in response.
"Every year." She mouths back. "-doing a split on a crate of dynamite." She says in unison with her mother moments later, and Jess winces. He stays in bed with her and her phone though, until Lorelai finishes her story.
"Happy birthday, kid."
"Thanks mom."
"Are you on speaker phone?"
"No- Yes, I had things to do."
"At... four in the morning? Jess? Are you there?"
He shoots her a desperate look before answering.
"Yeah, Lorelai… sorry."
There's a pause.
"Huh. Stealthy, as promised… and stoic. Hope you liked the story."
"Immensely."
"Atta boy. You have a good one, now. Bye, hun."
"Bye mom. Thanks."
They get up and make breakfast to bring with them. Get in the car and leave Stars Hollow twenty minutes later. Sure, they don't have the best track record with food in cars, but, she's aware, these days, of his spartan way of not eating breakfast when he first wakes up. He always waits at least an hour and sometimes longer when it's really early. She smiles at the fact that she knows that, and wolfs down her own breakfast while he's driving. Unknown Pleasures is playing, matching the still dark roads, and the feeling of unavoidable trust embedded in being a passenger. She turns it off as soon as the sun's up though, it makes no sense in daylight, puts on Kill the Moonlight instead.
•••
The early start serves its purpose and they arrive well before noon. The autumn sun peaks between buildings and contrast of blue sky and red brick, red foliage is spectacular. The unimpressive building holding his apartment is a bit off, the area neither hip nor prestigious but close to the subway. Jess is aware of all these things as he parks the car. When he moved in the decision was highly intentional, he longed for order and quiet. He got a good deal from the landlord just by telling the true story of his boring life. And he wanted the place because there were so many better options for people in his small circle of friends to host parties at. Since then he's only needed to invite groups of people over about once a year, when Chris or Matt have lectured him on social duties. Now he's self-conscious about that. Rory is one of the most social introverts he's ever known and he's embarrassed at his own blatant avoidant behavior, worried she won't like the area, apartment or city in general.
"You sure you don't wanna go straight to Truncheon?" He asks, a bit too hopeful.
"No way!" She says. "I wanna see your place."
He holds back a scowl. It's too late to back out now. It is her birthday. They get out of the car and walk a block before reaching his door.
He watches carefully her as she looks around the place. He grinds his teeth over the fact that he's done so little with it. Because of his meager social agenda, the place is not meant to impress anyone. It has the same old wallpaper it had when he moved in. The furniture seems random, like he picked up what he could get his hands on at a yard sale. And he swears internally at the accuracy of that feeling. Everything is hand-me-downs; A lot of Matt's stuff from their old apartment that his wife didn't want to keep when the two of them moved in together. He shakes his head at himself and to rid himself of that inadequate feeling. Rory walks into the kitchen, and he thanks his lucky star that he keeps it clean.
"How long have you lived here?"
"Almost five years."
She raises her eyebrows.
"Yeah, I know, time flies. We're lucky I actually got rid of the moving boxes at one point."
"And before that?"
"I lived with Matt and Chris. Then Matt got married and it was impossible to live with Chris without him."
"How so?"
"I don't know, Matt's the entrepreneur, Chris the artist. He's a lot of fun, but he sucks at anything practical, I had to do all the house work."
She nods, seemingly pleased that it wasn't the other way around.
She walks into the living room and immediately starts inspecting the book shelves. He smiles. She bends over to read the backs at the lowest shelf.
"Those are all Truncheon books." He informs her. She looks up, broad smile on her face, and he swears she's skipping a bit while straightening her body back up. He chuckles a bit as the thought appears; She's dating her dealer. She turns around and stiffens as her gaze falls on a lone, black and white, post card on the wall. Dammit.
"Simone de Beauvoir!" She says and points to it.
"Yup."
She looks at him questioning.
"What? She's one of the pillars of second-wave feminism!"
Rory smiles and shakes her head.
"She had a thing with Sartre, you know," he tries.
She rolls her eyes.
"Who doesn't know that? So, she's up there in capacity of love interest?"
"Look, it's just a pretty picture."
"Oh, so she's up there 'cause of her looks?"
"Come on!"
She steps closer to the card, skims its edges with her fingers, and pulls out the drawing pin keeping it in place. She turns the card over and a broad smile spreads on her face.
"I gave you this." Her eyes gleam.
"Huh." He says, but can't really keep from smiling.
"'Happy birthday, Jess. Love, Rory.'" She reads. "It came with a book."
"Obviously" He responds. "But what book?"
She bites her nails, distant gaze. Then squeezes her eyes shut and frowns before exclaiming;
"The Robber Bride!"
He smiles.
"Should I take it down?"
She looks up, eyes alive, and then puts the picture back up.
"No." She says. "She's an icon. Unlike Naomi Shropshire."
"May I suggest you don't waste time telling someone else's wacky story when you could write your own?"
"No, you may not, but now you've just blown right past that."
"It's probably not a good idea writing the biography of someone you loathe."
Rory smiles.
"I could write yours. Oh! It'll be like the birthday-trade! We write each other's biographies!"
"We did not trade birthdays!"
"Twin-biographies."
"Huh. Maybe a bit embarrassing writing the biography of someone you're sleeping with. Blind love isn't really a good basis for dynamic writing."
"Well, neither is seething hatred."
She looks at the postcard and then back at him, soft smile.
"Blind love?"
"Except I think I see you pretty clearly."
"Please. You're the reason that expression was invented."
He smiles and she cranes her neck to close the distance between their faces. He goes in for a peck but it stumbles into a kiss pretty quickly and he feels as if his chest is quaking. It's just a stupid postcard, but it's something there. She wraps herself around him, grabbing hold of his shirt, pulling him with her towards the remaining room.
As she enters the room she almost immediately folds over with laughter when she sees his single-bed.
"What?"
"The bed of a perpetual bachelor!"
"Where do you get this shit? Obviously, your sources are wrong."
With that he pulls her close, and pushes them both onto the bed.
A while later they're both under the gray bedsheets, half her body rests on his, her head on his shoulder.
"Why, mister," she drawls. "The size of your bed may much facilitate physical intimacy, but, now that you're done with me, it beckons me to leave your side."
"I'll get a new one, miss O'Hara."
There's a gust against his neck from her silent laugh.
"So this other birthday of mine isn't so far away," Rory goes on, "I think I'm gonna wish for a big surprise-party in Stars Hollow-"
"How is it a trade if you get to decide what to do for both days?" He calls.
"Don't argue with me on my birthday!"
"Oh boy."
"I thought you said this was your idea of a dream-day!"
"Being ruthlessly mocked over my choices of wall art isn't exactly at the top of my list. I actually am low maintenance, just not that low."
"Fine, Jess. What do you wanna do for my birthday?"
He's silent for a couple of seconds.
"This is kinda nice."
"A day in bed?"
"With you."
"Simple."
"If it makes you feel any better we can recite poetry to each other."
She laughs, then falls quiet.
"You know." She says after a while. "Sometimes a birthday is about more than yourself. My grandma threw me a terrible party when I turned sixteen. She didn't even know me at the time, but it was well-intentioned. So, imagine someone who knows you planning something for you. I think I see you pretty clearly too."
There's a twinge in his stomach at her words. The things he shows her, she sees clearly, that he knows. But there are other things, that have yet to surface. Things he never shows to anyone.
The bed has them facing the living room, with the crowded, rickety-looking bookshelves on either side of Matt's old couch in dark green corduroy.
"Uhm, honey," she starts, all deliberate-like, about a minute later.
"Yes darling?" he enunciates.
"I don't mean to be all ball and chain-y, but if you're expecting me to... keep a toothbrush here-"
He snorts.
"-We're gonna need a bigger shelf." She finishes, and he's never smiled so widely over a bad movie reference.
"Maybe even more than one."
"Probably."